Only in movies do witnesses appear on command, at the beck and call of casting directors. In the hurly-burly world of real courts, you are sometimes lucky to make your witnesses appear at all. What terrifies is that a client’s liberty can depend on mere chance.
Brittany Paz, Jim Nugent and I tried a murder case in New Haven this month. Weeks before trial, we gave a marshal subpoenas for about 10 witnesses. All but one were folks with checkered pasts. We did not suspect that one of them would want to appear.
